MindWanderer

If this ever passes, I'm pretty sure it will be the most-resubmitted remix in our history. Sadly, I don't think this is the time. The sound palette is still very vanilla, and still sounds like you made it with stock synths from LMMS. FL Studio supports dozens of really great VSTs that can give you richer and more varied sounds. Not that you didn't use a large number of different synths; it seems like it changes leads every couple of measures, but all of them are simple and generic-sounding. I agree with proph about the snares being underwhelming, but I have honestly no idea what he's talking about regarding hats, crashes, and kicks. There are hats used all over the place, keeping the 4/4 time everywhere that isn't a break; cymbals are often used as transitional elements; and the kick has an easily adequate amount of bass. The instruments that aren't leads are mostly pads and sweeps, but I hear perfectly fine amounts of reverb on everything else. I think the arrangement is suitable, and the production isn't bad, but your sample choices are letting you down. Using a hundred basic ones is not going to get you where using a dozen good ones will. Hit up our workshops, either on our forums or on Discord, and get some recommendations for free VSTs, and presets for them that will do what you want. I think this will get you most of the way there. NO

Great start, for the first 30 seconds. Rich and melancholy. After that, though, the volume issues start. At 0:34, the first "crunch" hits, and it's overwhelmingly loud and grating. It goes downhill from there, adding more and more layers without doing any EQ or other adjustments, so it steps all over itself. The angry German voice is so loud you can't hear anything past it but drums. So yeah, proph had it right: Conceptually, this is fantastic. It just needs a healthy dose of production work so that everything is audible and clear. NO

Opens with a sample from Bravely Second (a confusing choice!); given that this is a SquareEnix game, which we can't accept samples from, this is instantly a CONDITIONAL at best. That has to go, for legal reasons. I had to double-check to make sure the guitar wasn't also sampled; it's buried so deep under those massive, pounding beats that I can barely make it out. As near as I can tell, it's just a layer of these soundscape-dominating beats played over the two sources layered on top of each other, and repeated many times until it fades out. It's an interesting starting point, but it needs a whole lot more fleshing out to become an entire song. Also if you're going to put your melody in the background, whatever is lying on top of it has to be absolutely masterful; it's very challenging to pull off. NO

This is pretty quiet overall. I see it peaks at exactly 0 dB, but it doesn't seem to have any compression. I had to turn up my volume by about 25% over normal. The flutes are almost inaudible. I thought the cello was quite nice in the beginning, but the ensemble violin sample is very much not; it sounds extremely fake and mechanical. Then when the cello returns at 2:56, it conflicts with the violins and loses all its nice timbre, not even sounding like a cello anymore. The brass has a better tone, but no brass ensemble is ever going to end a note all on the exact same millisecond. So I have to agree with proph: The arrangement is quite good, with a lot of nuance and creativity, but the sample quality and production fall well short of our needs. NO (resubmit)

It's very difficult to write tunes that are strictly chiptunes while making them complex and engaging enough to be listened to as standalone music. Unfortunately, sticking to a fixed sound palette does make a track sound repetitive, even if there's no actual copy-pasting going on. I do notice the subtle variations between the loops in this remix, but they're quite subtle. 1:08 sounds too much like a return to 0:11. The fade-out ending adds to the feeling of repetition. It sounds to me like you're not sticking to an authentic GB sound anyway—to me, the reverb sounds richer than what the GB could produce, and it feels like too many layers—so you might as well go the extra mile and use more tools than what it had. Change up the synths, strengthen the kicks. It's a good start, though. NO

The amount of reverb continues to improve. Toms are still a little drier than I'd like, and to a lesser extent the rest of the percussion. The tails of the chimes mix with the pads to create a bit of a mess, but I'll live. The arrangement is a little static, but I feel like the bridge arrives before it wears out its welcome, and the bridge is mostly quite good. There are a couple of slightly conflicting notes in it, but they're not too painful. Ultimately I'm not hearing any glaring issues here. The percussion feeling out of place is the one thing that really grabs my attention, and it's not to a dealbreaking level. The cut-off ending does need to be fixed, though. YES/CONDITIONAL (on extending cut-off ending)

What an unusual take. The source material is definitely there from the get-go, but it's not obvious until 0:29, and even then the remix focuses on the supporting elements of the source and not the melody. It's a good exercise to the listener to not just focus on the melody. The mixing is indeed a little odd. That snare is crazy loud, and the rest of the soundscape other than the sax is a little flat. The e-piano is meant to fill the high end, but it's pretty quiet when it's not isolated and doesn't have a lot of shimmer to it. The cymbals are pretty quiet, too: I can barely hear even the crashes, and I wasn't sure for a while whether there were hats at all. Meanwhile, the bass is mostly in the sub and doesn't have a lot of presence to it. But the strengths are way up there. The sax and guitar arrangement and performances are stellar. The approach is unique and works great. I think the mixing is questionable enough that I wouldn't call this one a freebie, but I also don't have any qualms about giving it a YES

I have to agree. This is an absolute wall of sound, and not in a good "fills up the soundscape" way. By the halfway point, there's just so much going on that nothing can breathe. There are so many parts that you can just barely hear peeking out every once in a while. It's so busy that I didn't even hear the Green Hill section until my second listen, because most of the accompanying parts are kind of static: the arp, the choir, the drums, and several instruments that function as a pad are on a near-loop for minutes at a time. It also sounds like it was reverse-balanced: the beginning, when there are few parts, is quiet and sounds crushed even though nothing is crushing it, and there's a thin layer of white noise. So, same take-home message as proph: Lots of good idea, but you can't hear like 80% of it. If you don't cut parts entirely, let them take turns so we can appreciate them clearly. Then there will be some production work to do, but the lion's share of the work is just giving the composition the space it needs to be audible. NO

Brad's right on all counts, of course. This just isn't the type of creation we're looking for. I have nothing to add. NO

I'm immediately struck by how much of a better soundscape this is than the previous version, as far as I remember it. Reverb on the pads and chimes is a little over the top, but the percussion is still pretty dry. The snares are a little dry, but the toms are very, very dry and sound out of place. The saw lead that starts at 1:09 is also much drier than the rest of the soundscape. The bass is a hair dry, but it didn't bother me until repetition started becoming a problem. Speaking of which, it's still pretty repetitive. Everything up to 1:10 takes strictly an additive approach, each couple of loops adding an instrument or a few notes. The percussion loop is "complete" at 0:40 and repeats until 2:15. The main hook, which first plays at 0:34, plays an awfully large number of times total, and I personally got very tired of it. at 3:39 it returns to the same concept as the beginning, which is fine conceptually as a bookend, except it doesn't really expand on the theme and goes on for another full minute. There's no climax or anything, it just winds down the same way it built up. Overall, kudos on the substantial improvement, but the same core issues remain: Reverb on the instruments is inconsistent, making them sound like they're not in the same space, with the chimes and pads at opposite extremes; and the overall arrangement is too repetitive, with insufficient variation to retain the listener's interest. I encourage you to keep working at it, though, as this was a massive leap forward. NO

I try to be open-minded about Hudak pieces, but I was reminded in another vote that we need to be careful to judge all submissions on their own merits, not taking the artist under consideration. In that light, the mono-left section is a dealbreaker, but it's not the only thing that concerns me here. If you're going to use a retro FM synth palette, you need to be firing on all cylinders to create something either novel or period-appropriate, and I feel like this falls short. It's promising up through 0:41, but then it starts to ramble, with leads and harmonies that don't match up, and leads that are sometimes buried. 2:05 and onward has this problem as well, with leads and accompaniment that often don't play well together. The breakdown at 1:09-1:30 doesn't work for me, either. It's lengthy, minimal, bland, and doesn't seem to serve a structural purpose. There are a lot of really cool ideas here, as I expect from Michael. The general idea, of an energetic synthwave take on these sources, is sound. When everything is firing on all its '80s-inspired cylinders, it sounds great. When it gets noodly or experimental, it sounds less great. I don't think the creative structure was an experiment that worked well; even if that mono section were shifted to center, I think Brad's and Larry's criticisms about energy and pacing were dead on, and I'm not sure if the dissonance I'm hearing is a result of "detuning" or just mismatched part-writing. I'd want both of those matters to be addressed if we see a revision of this back on the panel. NO

I'm afraid I have to agree with proph. This is a very long burn: it's nearly 2 minutes of intro, 3 minutes of a static loop, and a minute of wind down. The synths are bland and quiet, and the overall sound is flat. I don't really have anything to add that Brad didn't already say, so just read his critique and take it to heart. NO

I see exactly how you were inspired to make this. I could easily imagine the OoT theme interleaved within See You At the Top exactly the way you did it. I came to the same conclusion as proph within the first 30 seconds. The Short Hike saw is loud and thick and overpowers the entire soundscape, and the kick causes the whole thing to pump. As a secondary concern, this is quite short. Other than the obvious inspiration of interleaving the two sources together, it doesn't really do much. It feels more like a proof-of-concept than a full song. See You At the Top is a long, complex tune, and you only made use of the intro. That's not to say we have any rule against using only part of a source, but it's unusual to take a source that has this much to it and use it to make something simple and just over 2 minutes long. You have a lot more to draw on here to flesh your arrangement out, and I think you could make a more interesting, engaging remix if you did that. But the important factor is the lack of clarity and balance. Take a look at that first and foremost. NO

Okay, I'm not going to listen to an entire hour-plus-long OST to review one track. This also opens with an 81-second rendition of the main TMNT theme song, which is originally from the cartoon. Our guidelines say the following: The music must have been composed specifically for the game or first published (or recognized) as the game's soundtrack. Movie themes such as Star Wars or licensed songs from games like Gran Turismo do not qualify. Any incorporation or arrangement of source material not from games (mainstream, classical, etc.) should be extremely limited. So that's immediately disqualifying right there. As for the production and arrangement, proph hit all the relevant notes. It's a thin, treble-heavy soundscape, and the arrangement is an overly-conservative medley with no connective tissue. proph gave plenty of good advice, so please take it to heart. NO

I know this source like the back of my hand, so the fact that I didn't pick up on the melody until 20 seconds in means that the mixing really could be improved. The bass, drums, and chugs just stomp all over it. I understand that the melody line is often not the loudest part in heavy metal, but it still shouldn't be quite this hard to pick out. The subtractive stuff really is quite neat. Too hard to hear, but it's riffing on the melody in a creative way that I don't hear often enough. It just skirts that line between "uses the source" and "is inspired by the source." It's tough to judge vis-a-vis our standards. Here are my timestamps: 0:03-0:32 (direct) 0:48-1:13 (subtractive) 1:42-2:03 (half direct, half subtractive) 2:03-2:08 (direct) 2:35-2:38 (direct) Total: 81/180 seconds = 45% Ugh. Even giving generous credit, I can't come up with 50%, and I think some of our stricter timestamper judges would come up with even less. It's a real shame, because other than the mixing, I like what I'm hearing a lot. I absolutely want to see some of those ideas on the panel again, whether it's a revision of this or something new, but this submission has to be a NO

Far too quiet, right off the bat. Even maxing out my player volume, about a 50% increase in my usual volume, it's too quiet to hear clearly. From what I can hear, there are quite a few issues, but proph covered them pretty well. The soundscape is minimal, the layers aren't in the same key, and the arrangement is underdeveloped. I hate to be harsh, but I think spending some time in our workshop areas would be helpful to you. NO

I'm afraid I have to agree. The drums vary in intensity but never in pattern, and the second half is pretty similar in structure to the first, so it feels longer and more repetitive than it really is. I don't think the production is all that muddy, but it is loud, and the brass slips into the uncanny valley at times. Also the female vocals sound really strained on the high notes (0:26 and 0:47, for instance). I'm not totally on board with the moog-like synth used, either; it's really out of place in an otherwise quasi-medieval orchestral piece. Lots of great ideas and a good foundation here, just needs some tweaks to get it over the finish line. NO

I have to co-sign on all the above. I didn't look at this in a frequency graph, but the production lacks clarity in a big way. It's all mids and highs, and the mids are muddy. Nearly everything is fighting for a very narrow bandwidth. Proph is right about the loudness, too; the example of the solo organ hitting the limiter just as much as when the whole ensemble is playing is a striking one. The waveform isn't even a normal sausage, it's like... a linguica? Mostly one long tube. It's a fun arrangement, great performances, but needs a lot of work in the levels and and EQ departments. proph told you what to do, so please go do it. NO (resubmit)

Co-signing on the above. The drums are better but still mushy, and the performances are not where they need to be (0:59 is a notable flub that wasn't mentioned above). The arrangement is still on the plodding and conservative side, but I did enjoy the bridge in 1:46-2:09. I'd probably vote in favor, though with hesitation, if we got this arrangement but the production and performances were perfect. But they're not. NO

Took me a while to find the problem, because the part of Sun of Nothing that's referenced doesn't start until 7:50 in that song. I'm actually borderline on the Strauss; it's very obviously derived from Also sprach Zarathustra, but there are differences. They're not major differences, but they are differences. If I had to make a judgment call about it, I'd be waffling a lot. Fortunately I don't have to, because the Sun of Nothing reference is much longer and closer to the original, as well as more complex. I don't like rejecting this, and it's a real shame that we have to. NO

Yep, this is, unfortunately, not what we're looking for. Any of the issues of how close it hews to the original, how quiet and un-produced it is, the vanilla sound design with little complexity and virtually no percussion, and how it consists of two loops of the same thing, would be cause for rejection. NO

I have to admire your persistence! Unfortunately, proph is right on all counts. It's not loud in an absolute sense, but it is overcompressed, bitcrushed, and pumping. The parts are stepping all over each other, crammed into the mids without much if any EQ work going on. There's no consideration for how much louder simple waveforms sound than complex ones, so the perceived volume is inconsistent. I will say that the arrangement is an improvement over earlier versions. The original writing from 1:24-1:43 is still kind of rambling and strange, but it's better than previous efforts and ties in better to the source material and the rest of the remix. Unfortunately, I still need to give this yet another NO

I have to echo the above. The arrangement is just so one-note. Vocal pieces like San Jacinto can get away with having a fairly static backing because the focus is on the singing and the lyrics. But even that song does have some textural development, even ignoring the vocals. I would like to add that I'm impressed you were able to make something with LMMS that didn't get dinged for synthesis or production issues. Free DAWs, especially ones that run on Linux, need more love, but they're a challenge to use. To my knowledge we haven't had an LMMS ReMix get posted yet, but I'd love to see it happen. NO

Nice bass to open up with. Fun choice to do a genre transformation of a track that has such an iconic ethnic flair to it, which you mostly managed to strip out. I thought the pacing was perfect, not too slow at all. However, I think the judges above glossed over the amount of repetition. 0:07-0:42 is repeated nearly verbatim in 1:31-2:20 (with two loops of 0:07-0:27). 49 seconds of repetition out of a 2:38 track is 31%, nearly a third of the whole arrangement. Cut out the copy-pasta and there isn't even 2 minutes left. I like what's here a lot, so I'm actually more borderline on this than I normally would be for a submission with so much repetition, which would normally be disqualifying. So even though it's close, for the sake of consistent voting standards (at least for myself), I feel like I need to come down on the side of NO

I agree with proph. The personalization is maybe borderline (though I'm on the side of NO there), but the fact that the second half is nearly identical to the first is a dealbreaker. The repetition is exacerbated by the low-fi, mellow, static beat and lack of dynamic interest. I feel like I'd heard everything this had to offer 30 seconds in. I respect that intent is to be chill, but this is too chill, the loop aside. NO